Do You Care About the Real Lewis Carroll?

Art and fiction
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Superstardom’s brightness can be blinding — especially when it becomes legendary. While many fans of a scandalized big celebrity seem content to indefinitely remain in denial, many others will shrug and continue consuming the celebrity’s product.

Nowadays, some fans will even make anonymous threats, often via social media, to scare off potential threats to the star’s reputation.

Michael Jackson’s questionable history of having young boy sleepovers at his Neverland Ranch comes to mind as a significant example: There were the enormous organized vicious attacks via various media on anyone, including big TV producers, who dare suggest that the legendary pop-music artist was a pedophile at heart. He simply was — and still is — that great and greatly loved.

As a pre-broadcast-era artist example, many people to this day have great difficulty accepting, or perhaps even caring, that acclaimed author Lewis Carroll — writer of the Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass children’s novels — enjoyed having little girls pose nude for his camera. He was/is just that great and greatly admired.

Five or six years ago, I asked four peers whether they were aware of this rather unorthodox photography hobby enjoyed by Carroll, penname of Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

All four had no idea. One, though, became agitatedly apologetic and diversionary in her defense of the author: “So what? Woody Allen had sex with his [adopted] daughter!” Another peer replied similarly.

Astounded, I felt sure they would not be so dismissive had they viewed just a few of the many shots of unnaturally seductive poses involving small child subjects. The ones I saw in a Great Books documentary left me disgusted.

But it seems few know or care about the real Lewis Carroll.

“[Carroll] would ask mama if it was alright for him to photograph the little girl; and later on he would ask if he could photograph her in a costume; and eventually he would work his way up like a lover to, if he could photograph the child in the nude,” stated retired Temple University English professor emeritus Donald Rackin, in a Great Books documentary (a copy of which I own). “We know that of course he was refused sometimes, but it was astounding how many mothers said, ‘go ahead’.”

Acclaimed writer and commentator Will Self stated the conundrum thus: “It’s a problem, isn’t it, when somebody writes a great book but they’re not a great person.”

Yet, as a prestigious figure, instead of being reprimanded or thrown into a Victorian-era prison, Carroll continued taking his child photos. His ability to get away with his perverted predilection for such photography may have been but indicative of the societal entitlement he enjoyed, even as an oddball loner.

Still, some feel Carroll was unfairly misunderstood. For one, Hollywood Reporter guest columnist Will Brooker, who also authored Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture, wrote that, “Compared to some of our celebrities—the sportsmen, film directors and singers who commit real crimes like assault and abuse and are still welcomed back by fans—Lewis Carroll was a regular saint.”

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I honestly don’t believe he was sexually attracted. He was stuck, trying to recapture the innocence and “normalcy” of what it would be like being a regular kid. Since his childhood that was taken from him for his father’s desire for fame and fortune. Michael was an very talented musician and dancer. Writer, arranger, choreographer, etc. His only interest was trying to recapture his lost childhood, having true friendships as we all did as children. No agenda. Just missing the pure innocence of being young.

I know, because I feel similarly stuck. My parents nasty, ugly divorce, that started when I was around 10, ruined my pre-adolescent years. It IS a very short time but the most important time in someone’s life! Her remarriage to a narcessist, psyochological bully of children set me on a path of anger and rage that took years to come to terms with, that none of it was my fault.

My attraction is purely based on what I believe to be similar to Michael’s. Missing that time of pre-adolescence when the world was still shiny and bright, full of wonder and excitementl. Replaced by strife and head games. I like kids before their heads get filled up with the modern day garbage that’s pumped throughout society these days! It’s GD awful!!

Everything is always filtered through people’s obsession with sex! Always about sex! You have religion to thank for this schism!

As far as the high-and-mighty and their pedophelic perversions, they all get to go on destroying young people’s lives scott free. At least a (very) few are finally coming to a reckoning, albeit a little late. (aka Harvey Weinstein) When will Epstein’s list ever be released? When will those people face the music? It’s likely too many political people will be implicated. Meanwhile, the increasing trafficking of children worldwide goes unaddressed!

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You may be right about Michael Jackson. … As for childhoods robbed by, to put it mildly, dysfunctional parenting, it could never be criticized too much.

Being a caring, competent, loving and knowledgeable parent [about factual child-development science] should matter most when deciding to procreate. Therefore, parental failure occurs as soon as the solid decision is made to have a child if one cannot be truly caring, competent, loving and knowledgeable [about factual child-development science].

There’s a naïve, if not reckless, perception and implementation of procreative ‘rights’ as though the potential parent will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture the child’s naturally developing bodies, minds and needs.

In Childhood Disrupted the author writes that even “well-meaning and loving parents can unintentionally do harm to a child if they are not well informed about human development” (pg.24).

As liberal democracies, we cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, not even the plainly incompetent and reckless procreators. We can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high-school students who plan to remain childless.

If nothing else, such child-development curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood. Given what is at stake, should they not at least be equipped with such valuable science-based knowledge?

A physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. Particularly one in which too often Mom and Dad stop loving each other, frequently fight and eventually divorce.

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We can’t really retrospectively mind-read Lewis Carroll, even based on probabilities; in the meantime, early photography was a careful discipline considered to be like painting with light, and there was never a shortage of naked people in Western European and British painting. Under the influence of Greek and Roman sculpture, art had become the one place where the beauty of bodies could be integrated into the rest of beauty - a sanity reservoir against the clamour of social control fanaticisms.

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The following are all of the notes and quotes I wrote down while watching my VHS copy of the Great Books Collection’s Alice In Wonderland and Through the Lookin Glass documentary. They should be read as being in point form rather than a persuasive essay. There are both pro and con facts and quotes.

It is amazing how many apologetic contemporary scholars still come to his defense, as though his literary greatness still merits in contemporary times a public pass on his photographic hobby perversion.

Hollywood Reporter guest columnist Will Brooker, writer of Alice’s Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture, says the author is being misunderstood and unfairly labelled: “Lewis Carroll is treated [by his critics] like a man you wouldn’t want your kids to meet, yet his stories are still presented as classics of pure, innocent literature … Compared to some of our celebrities – the sportsmen, film directors and singers who commit real crimes like assault and abuse and are still welcomed back by fans – Lewis Carroll was a regular saint.”

“Lewis Carroll liked all children, as long as they were little girls.”

Had little girl subjects, one of whom was the real little girl Alice Liddell, after whom he named the fictional book character.

“Next to The Bible and Shakespeare,” notes Great Books series narrator Donald Sutherland, “Alice In Wonderland is the most quoted book in the English language.”

Writer/commentator Will Self has stated the truism, “It’s a problem, isn’t it, when somebody writes a great book but they’re not a great person.”

According to Wikipedia, “Will Brooker is a writer and academic, professor of film and cultural studies at Kingston University and an author of several books of cultural studies dealing with elements of modern pop culture and fandom, specifically Batman, Star Wars and Alice in Wonderland.”

Retired Temple University English professor emeritus Donald Rackin says that Carroll’s “greatest interest was in photographing little girls … He would ask mama if it was alright for him to photograph the little girl; and later on he would ask if he could photograph her in a costume; and eventually he would work his way up like a lover to, if he could photograph the child in the nude. We know that of course he was refused sometimes, but it was astounding how many mothers said, ‘go ahead’.”

[Was Lewis Carroll a Pedophile? His Photographs Suggest So]
[‘Alice in Wonderland’ Author Lewis Carroll Wasn’t the Pedophile Pop Culture Made Him Out To Be (Guest Column)]

“His girl photos were troubling to some,” says narrator Sutherland, they were “pure genius to others” … “sensual portraits”

A book illustration created by Carroll himself, is one of Alice with her neck excessively extended: “This is almost clearly phallic. Alice is phallus, if you will.”

He also went further, re: the dangerous, claustrophobically confined situation when Alice grows too big for the house she’s in.

Alice (and her two sisters) was the university dean’s daughter.

Carroll, himself a man of the cloth, wrote (in his journal?) in regards to his naked girl photo subjects, “That innocent unconsciousness is beautiful and gives one a feeling of reverence as if in the presence of something sacred …”

In the documentary (produced in 1994) Lewis Carroll biographer and apologist Morton Cohen(?) insists that, “He [Carroll] didn’t have to [take drugs, because] he had it [the psychedelic quality] built into him, automatically.” So, no, he also wouldn’t have given them to Alice.

According to Edward Wakeling, of the Lewis Carroll Society, U.K. Chapter, Carroll’s diary/biography/letters reveal that, “He likes/d all children – as long as they’re little girls” … “There must have been some sexual side to it … it was definitely a voyeuristic look-but-don’t touch …”

Elizabeth Sewell, Nonsense Scholar, claims that LC wasn’t normal, “but then what is normal? … he was eccentric.”

Dr. Selwyn Goodacre, Lewis Carroll Society U.K. Chapter.

An interviewed spokesperson for the North American chapter of the Lewis Carroll Society – hardly one to be out to smear Carroll’s with the worst possible reputation damaging false allegation: Charles Lovett

Even John Lennon was fascinated with LC … He/The Beatles placed him on the cover of Sargent Pepper’s album.

Great Books from The Learning Channel / Alice In Wonderland / Narrated by Donald Sutherland / Executive Editor: Walter Cronkite / Copyright 1996 Discovery Channel Online distributed / Exclusively manufactured and distributed by Alliance Video in Montreal, Que.

According to retired professor of English emeritus at Temple University Donald Rackin: Worked at Temple University / Studied English literature at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign / Studied at NYU, Rutgers / Went to westside high school Newark / Lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania / From Newark, New Jersey ….

William Woodard Self is an English novelist, journalist, political commentator and television personality.

Acclaimed writer and commentator Will Self has stated: “I think [Carroll] was a heavily repressed pedophile, without doubt. It’s a problem, isn’t it, when somebody writes a great book but they’re not a great person.”

Whatever Carroll (and, for that matter, the many other men out there just like him) fanaticized about was his own business; however, when he crossed the line by getting his little children subjects to actually undress and pose seductively as he took pictures of them – regardless of receiving Mum’s permission – that made it an entirely other matter.

In other words, thoughts belong only to their beholders, but with the stipulation that one keeps their hands, and perverted hobbies, strictly to themselves.

The white knight in Through the Looking Glass likely Lewis Carroll deeply in love with Alice.

“My understanding is that he was in love with Alice, but he was so repressed that he never would have transgressed any boundaries,” says Vanessa Tait, Alice’s great-granddaughter, Liddell, in the documentary [What documentary?]. She adds that the explicit photograph may explain the rift that made Carroll break contact with the Liddell girls in 1863, when Alice was eleven.

Crucially missing are Carroll’s diary entries from April 1858 to May 1862, a period which coincides with his friendship with the Liddell girls.

“It’s sad that that’s the thing everyone is going to want to know, especially in the year of the anniversary of the book,” Tait adds.

It seems like there are alternative facts as to whether Carroll was perverted or just plainly unfairly misunderstood. ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Author Lewis Carroll Wasn’t the Pedophile Pop Culture Made Him Out To Be (Guest Column)

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This illustrates what I called “the clamour of social control fanaticisms.” Why would anyone imagine that someone they imagined being attracted to girls would draw them as “phallic?” Yes, polymorphous perversity is not unknown, but parsimony says that a story about weird and fantastical changes of dimension might provide a better explanation, though far less satisfying to the prurient speculator.